The black oral history interviews conducted by Quintard Taylor and his associates from 1972-1974 were transferred to the Archives from the AudioVisual Listening Lab in January and May, 1978. (78-3). They were abstracted in June of 1979 by Margot H. Knight. They consist of fifty cassette tapes.

PROJECT HISTORY

The Black Studies Department was provided with $1500 in university funds in the summer of 1972 to begin preliminary research on sources of black history in the Pacific Northwest. Since it seemed that few blacks left a written record of themselves, important information was passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. Quintard Taylor, with associates Charles Ramsay and John Dawkins, began to interview black pioneers and their descendents throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

The information obtained was used as source material for KWSU-TV's documentary series South by Northwest and also served as primary source material for Taylor's doctoral dissertation, "A History of Blacks in the Pacific Northwest, 1788-1970," completed at the University of Minnesota in 1977.

ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

The tapes are arranged alphabetically by interviewee. An exception occurs where two interviewees were recorded on the same cassette (No.s 3 & 4), making 51 interviews on 50 tapes. Topics include early black settlers, job opportunities, living patterns, black churches, and black political involvement from the late 1800s through 1974. Most of the interviews follow a standard set of questions.